NOVA

I went to hand in my folio, they made us submit our final animation both online and saved onto a CD. Was quite happy giving in my completed folio, I put more effort in than expected and having ticked every task off the checklist was pretty satisfying.

I must admit, there's a certain strange charm to old school CD-ROMs, although I don't really see the point of having them anymore. 

They're a great blank canvas though, really nice for inspiring you to be creative.

Just like the first blank page of a new notebook. Although, if you draw this wrong you don't feel as much a failure at life.

This is a really old photo by the way. Submission for the folio was on the 2nd of June, before exam period started. My exams are over now, I finish quite early.
So anyway, remember my friend Jess, whose birthday took place back in March?

I was really swamped with uni work around the time of her birthday, so instead of giving her an actual present I just gave her an IOU. So when this happened:

I think it's pretty much self-explanatory.
I pretty much instantly recognised what she meant by "Novo": blame my early childhood, where I was introduced to the enormous and possibly endless world of manga and anime - through a huge pile of borrowed Bleach DVDs, at the mere age of 12.

I always try to start drawing plans before I begin a project, it helps in getting proportions right. Sometimes I even implement mathematical formulae in order to get the roundest shape possible, or get correct measurements.
No big.

I wasn't kidding about my 12-year-old self's addiction to Bleach. Here is one of the by-products of my obsession with it. Those who were 'fortunate' to attend the same high school as me would know about a particular program run at the end of the year for the younger cohorts, called the "YEP Program". I always hated this program for several reasons; it was run during the last two weeks of the entire school year, and it was compulsory thus denying us students our precious holidays - instead filling them with droll, insipid activities, none of which appealed much to anybody at all. Also, the term "YEP Program" is in fact an acronym for Year End Program, and as such "YEP Program" is "Year End Program Program" and a redundancy. Even at the mere age of 12, hearing people spout this ridiculous and vile insult to the English language was simply intolerable and I most likely promptly made this point very clear, very loudly, and right to your face, if you happened to say it within my general proximity.
It was this first year of high school that 12 year old me fearlessly signed up for the textiles group, with the sole intent of creating the very rabbit you see above.
His name is Cloud.
And he has a zipper in his forehead.

Sewing this shell together was a total biatch. It was a ton harder than the photos imply...
While I was making him, I managed to plow through quite a few seasons of Daria. Another cartoon from my childhood. My personality is definitely at least somewhat comparable to hers, although I highly doubt I could crack jokes as witty as hers on the spur of the moment.

"Daria, why must you always see things in such a harsh light?"

"Are you possibly referring to the harsh light of reality?"

Genius.

For once, I actually managed to finish a project quite early and get an acceptable amount of sleep.
Go, me.
Although I couldn't get it to stand up at all.
Oh well.

Till next time, I leave you with some crappy pictures of me attempting to photograph stars while testing out my new tripod, and a song. I've been listening to this song constantly, especially while on public transport.

It's so relaxing, it's the perfect travel music.

Birdy - 1901